Dominikana
by Chris & Tom / Manufactura Czekolady
Impact
Appearance 3.4 / 5
| Color: | shoe leather brown |
| Surface: | a schlub: chips, flakes, bubbles, & a missing chunk (something been gnawing on this?) |
| Temper: | reflective |
| Snap: | brittle; evenly sanded edge |
Aroma 8.6 / 10
a smoke-out: picholine olive over cigar leaf & hickory chips (+ a bit of petrol too) & a medium chocolate note; generally frutiless
Mouthfeel 11.2 / 15
| Texture: | weirding: starts out pottery shards / ends up glob & grain |
| Melt: | strange evolution of fits & stops |
Flavor 45.5 / 50
sweet-spot sapote right off the block -> brown sugar -> tamarind & fig -> mango with a parched wooded cocoa counter -> dried apricot
Quality 17.1 / 20
Betrayed by rank beans in its Ekwador cru, Chris & Tom find themselves in far better company here with cacáo from The Dominican Republic, an island which for several harvests now rates near or at the world's top in production quality. In return, the label responds in kind.
Subdued fruit. Quietly sweet & defined -- though hardly pronounced -- as every note has a nicely balanced counter, generally configured as browns against reds (figs / tamarind / cocoa vs. sapote / mango / apricot).
Clean too; very little astringency.
While nothing's out of place with flavor, indeed the bar holds true to the D.R. (relatively short & semi-shallow), the Texture is anything but.
It literally ingrains the role that conching plays in the sensory experience: relatively curtailed (30 hours) yet vigorous (hi-friction) to smooth out the volatiles while contributing a coarse mouthfeel. Quite the tradeoff, generating a contrast between Flavor & Texture at odds with one another yet works amiably well together.
This dovetails with another opposing-dynamic: strangely long melt / short flavor progression.
Overall a bit quirky... in line with Poland's national trait.
ING: cocoa mass, sugar
Reviewed October 25, 2011
Subdued fruit. Quietly sweet & defined -- though hardly pronounced -- as every note has a nicely balanced counter, generally configured as browns against reds (figs / tamarind / cocoa vs. sapote / mango / apricot).
Clean too; very little astringency.
While nothing's out of place with flavor, indeed the bar holds true to the D.R. (relatively short & semi-shallow), the Texture is anything but.
It literally ingrains the role that conching plays in the sensory experience: relatively curtailed (30 hours) yet vigorous (hi-friction) to smooth out the volatiles while contributing a coarse mouthfeel. Quite the tradeoff, generating a contrast between Flavor & Texture at odds with one another yet works amiably well together.
This dovetails with another opposing-dynamic: strangely long melt / short flavor progression.
Overall a bit quirky... in line with Poland's national trait.
ING: cocoa mass, sugar
Reviewed October 25, 2011